Well so much for worrying about the length of the pit stop and how long the next leg is.......all moot now. I think you are right......there should be a HOO rest period after the swimming pool, and all getting bunched up at the place that Phil sends them to, from the Drum Tower. It could also be one of those "take a time" deals.

Would Cara/Jaime and Margie/Luke actually fail to get on the first two flights? And if so, how would they?If Tammy/Victor are still in the running, they would have outright beat them to begin the final leg...

These are the flights I found for Nov 21, 2008 for Toyko to Honolulu. They are the same as Neobie found. I have put the scheduled departure/arrival times in black and actual departure/arrival times in red. They differ from apskip's list of flights with the addition of JO 8090. apskip doesn't list this flight for some reason. I have no idea why Northwest Airlines would have two flights taking off at exactly the same time (NW 96 and NW 30) and landing at exactly the same time. I think it is probably the same flight, but who knows. On Nov 21, the PEK-NRT NW30 was cancelled. So maybe the passengers from that flight were put on NW96, if there was no equipment available. Phil/BVM/production crew and T/V probably flew on the following flight PEK-NRT. There are two earlier flights from PEK to NRT @ 08:25 and 08:35, but they arrive at a different termial than NH 956 and CA 925. It is important that Phil/BVM/produciton crew and T/V arrive at the same termianl as CA 925, in order for the blogger to observer them all in the same terminal and to ride the same shuttle bus to T-2.

NH 956 08:45(08:54) - 13:05(13:25) arrive NRT @ Terminal T-1-S

The spoiler/blogger flew on fight CA 925 with J/C and M/L from Beijing to Toyko. With a 24 minute takeoff delay, I can just see Jamie's stress level rising. Guess the pilot put the pedal to the metal, because it landed 13 minutes early.

CA 925: 09:30(09:54)-13:50(13:37) arrive NRT @ Terminal T-1-S

After this flight, the spoiler/blogger saw M/L and J/C go one way and the spoiler/blogger went to the Japan Airlines transfer desk, where she say Phil, BVM, production crew and T/V in line ahead of him/her. If these people were not flying on Japan Airlines, why would they be at the JAL transfer desk? After the spoiler/blogger finished at the transfer desk, she again saw all of the above people on the terminal shuttle bus. After arriving at termina T-2, she lost sight of all the aforementioned people and continued on to her gate.

One of the things we have had a lot of conjecture/speculation about is the proximity of Phil/BVM and production crew to T/V, if T/V were still racing. Here is some speculation. Phil/BVM and production could be flying on JO 76 and T/V could be on JO 8090. TPTB could ban teams from flying on JO 76 for the very reason to give them some separation.

We will probably not know till the finale. But the finishing order this coming week might give us a clue. If T/V win the leg, then it is very possible, to me, that they could use their language skills at a travel agency in Beijing to book earlier flights than M/L or J/C will most probably do at the airport in Beijing. M/L and J/C could also have just gone the wrong direction in Narita and eventually found the JAL transfer desk and was never seen by the spoiler/blogger after she transferred terminals.

What I do find interesting and happens every now and then, the 2nd taking off flight, is actually the first one to land. If this is in fact what happened, then T/V got to Hawaii before Phil/BVM and crew after all.

***If T/V were on JO 8090, then that gives them about 49 minutes on the ground in Honolulu to clear customs and catch the next flight to Maui, which as apskip has pointed out, are about every 30 minutes. Actually there are 14 flights from 07:00 till 12:00. They could actually be on the ground in Maui before the other teams have left Honolulu, If and ONLY IF they are still racing and are not decoys. If they are, in fact, decoys, then all of this is moot.

Also GeorgiaPeach added that TPTB might use first come, first served charters, just as they did in TAR11 to give Phil some lead time and a headstart on Maui.

Neobie, I too noticed that immediately last night, but I did it relative to sunrise in Beijing at 705 am on Nov. 20 (imagine that!). The possible explanations are that teams were held for about 8 hours at a hotel or less likely that there was an unshown hours of operation. That is less likely because teams would all get past such a HOO at approximately the same time, which does not look like what happened.

Chateau, there is another way to approach the question of which flight the 3 teams were on. The runway, not gate, arrival times of the NRT HNL flights on NOv.21 were:

JO76 631amJO8090 reported at 619am although this is difficult to believe since it left Tokyo 27 minutes later. It must be a much faster aircraft to turn 27 minutes behind to 12 minutes ahead in a 7 hour flight.

Add in about 8 minutes to get to the gate and the door open and you have:

Tammy/Victor ready for head for U.S. customs at 627am and the other 2 teams ready at 639am. Now, what is the connect time for incoming international to deaprting Hawaiian inter-island flight. It depends on who you ask, but American Airlines reportedly uses 75 minutes as the total for getting baggage, clearing customs, rechecking baggage, checking in for the interisland flight and boarding that flight. So that takes us to:

Tammy/Victor 742am Margie/Luke and Jaime/Cara 754am

If things occur with normal efficiency, all teams should make HA116 HNL OGG 0800 0837. The next flight is HA176 HNL OGG 0820 0857 and the one after that HA146 0850 0927.

We reached the same conclusion! But had I added up times like that I would not have considered the American Airlines standard 75 minutes as a good estimate for our teams to take care of: getting baggage, clearing customs, rechecking baggage, checking in for the interisland flight and boarding that flight. Because they didn't have to get any baggage. The savings from the absence of that task would take the 75 minutes down to 50 minutes. And then you get TV in their seats at 7:17 am and the other teams at 7:29 am. That permits inclusion of an earlier flight from HNL to OGG: YV1010.

I think the appearance of "gate 21" in the shot helps to nail down the exact flight.

We reached the same conclusion! But had I added up times like that I would not have considered the American Airlines standard 75 minutes as a good estimate for our teams to take care of: getting baggage, clearing customs, rechecking baggage, checking in for the interisland flight and boarding that flight. Because they didn't have to get any baggage. The savings from the absence of that task would take the 75 minutes down to 50 minutes. And then you get TV in their seats at 7:17 am and the other teams at 7:29 am. That permits inclusion of an earlier flight from HNL to OGG: YV1010.

I think the appearance of "gate 21" in the shot helps to nail down the exact flight.

Chateau,YOu are right about the teams, but you have forgotten the camera/sound crew that stays with them like glue. They need to check baggage (containing cameras, sound equipment, etc.) and retrieve it so it is irrelevant that the team do not. Forget any earlier flights than 8am HNL OGG.

Congratulations to Victor and Tammy, who have made it halfway around the world to win the Amazing Race!

Their journey took them on 27 taxis, 22 planes, 11 trains, 3 cars, 2 metros, 2 boats, a cable car, a rodelbahn, a snowplow, a rickshaw, a raft, an electric bicycle and a jet ski. Presenting... the winner's lap:

schedule for good train (taken by Brad/Victoria and lagging teams get there in time to take it):dep. Locarno 1042 arr. Domodossola 1230dep. Domodossola 1248 arr. Spiez 1353dep. Spiez 1403 arr. Interlaken West 1423 total trip is 4 hours train;other teams go earlier and get there slightly earlier(except for Christie/Jodi who get a circuitous route 1 1/4 hours hours earlier but arrive later or teams that are behind Brad/Victoria);

then self-drive less than an hour to RuhpoldingTasks in Raushberg near Ruhpolding parasailing, 25 mile drive to Schnoau am Kongisee for tasks, then Evening Extedned 18 hour Pit stop in Salzburg at Schloss Hellbrunn

Nov. 4 begin leg 3;Salzburg to Bucharest starts with driving to Alzburg rail station, getting on a train to Munich and switching there to an airport train. The schedules from Salzburg all the way to MUchich Flughafen (on average once per hour) are:

1103 13171152 14171303 15261314 15371352 15571441 16571552 17571617 1827Flight choices depend on arrival at Munich Airport. Tammy/Victor initially get LH3480 1525 1825 but then it comes back with a mechanical problem. RO312 1645 1945 is taken by 3 teams.LH3424 2130 0025+1 is taken by everyone else except Brad/VictoriaBrad/Victoria attempt to get 15 minutes ahead of the alst group by going MUC AMS and AMS OTP but delays on the flight into Amsterdam doom them to not departing until the KLM nonstop the next morning and not arriving into Bucharest until after 1pm.